


Waves Crash In

by echoist



Category: Primeval
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-05
Updated: 2012-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-29 00:14:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/313725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/echoist/pseuds/echoist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For <a href="http://lostinthechaos.tumblr.com">lostinthechaos</a>, who left me this prompt:</p><p>‘I found myself face down in the ditch, booze in my hair, blood on my lips, a picture of you, holding a picture of me, in the pocket of my blue jeans.’ (Jolene, by Ray Lamontagne)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waves Crash In

It was the worst after Sarah died.

He’d placed his letter on Lester’s desk, his security badge alongside. The guns were stowed in lock up. His kit was packed. Becker walked out of the ARC without a word, without having to look anyone in the eye. Another life lost; another door closed.

He’d thought nothing could be worse – could ever  _feel_ worse than losing Connor, Abby and Danny all in one go, but he’d been wrong. Guilt accretes, festers; the blood on his hands mingled into an amalgamation of loss. A yoke worn tight across his shoulders. A stain.

He was done.

He wasn’t sure how it happened, really. Days bled into one another, buses and trains all looked the same. One day he found himself stood alone on the shore, watching the waves crash in. The tide rose with each yawning rush forward, creeping closer and closer to his boots on the sand. He sat down, suddenly unable to stand before its inexorable might. The waves rolled on, pounding one after another as the sun slid slowly down the horizon and left in its wake a grey and sullen chill. They never stopped, dragging the beach away one grain of sand at a time only to rebuild it again. This was the nature of loss. This was the world, and his place in it.

There was a small hole in the toe of his right boot, collecting sand. There were smudges of blood across his hands now, metaphor made visible. A slow red line trickled down the side of his face from an injury he couldn’t recall. Becker felt in his left shirt pocket, pulled out a faded photograph. It was creased in two places, scratched and torn a bit along the left edge. Connor smiled up at him, caught in the middle of fiddling with something at his station. Hair askew, ridiculous kerchief round his neck. Bright, mismatched colours now dingy and pallid, nearly washed away.

It had fallen out of his locker one day, slipped in through a row of slats along the top. There was no note, no indication of who might have left it there, but Becker had his suspicions. He’d kept it with him whenever the team took on a mission without him; he’d been carrying it in his pocket every day for nearly six months.

For a moment, he contemplated giving it to the ocean. Standing up, walking to the edge of the waves and hurling it out like a pebble. Perhaps it would skip. Perhaps he could finally be rid of the grief he wore about his neck like a stone. And perhaps the sky was actually green, Becker thought, returning the photo to his pocket. He brushed the sand from his legs as he stood and walked back into town, heading for the closest pub. Fuck all that it was four o’clock in the afternoon. Fuck all that he’d stumbled out of the bar and onto the sand not six hours before. He didn’t want to think, didn’t want to remember. He just wanted it to be done.

Becker wondered sometimes how he’d ever managed to come back from there, half mad and three-quarters gone. In the end, it was more for the chance to be the first to know than any lost sense of obligation or duty. Maybe, he thought in quiet moments, when nothing was chasing him and he hadn’t blown anything up in nearly a week, maybe – it was both. A soldier shows up and stays the fucking course. A soldier waits, when waiting is all that can be done.

When Lester had managed to reach him, had broken through the haze of scotch and smoke and misery, he’d listened. He’d listened, and quietly whispered ‘Yes, sir’ when he’d meant to answer no. And now, at half three in the morning, he looked out over his city from the balcony, watching the lights roll past below in tiny twin columns and thinking of the tide. This was the nature of loss; this was rebuilding. This was the way the pieces came back together and never fit quite the same way. He didn’t carry the photograph in his pocket anymore.

A footstep scuffled lightly behind him, sliding shut the door. Shame on him, he hadn’t heard it open. A hand against his shoulder, resting there gently. A voice, quiet and still against the damp night air. “Come back to bed, it’s cold.”

Becker covered Connor’s hand with his own, squeezing as tightly as he dared. How foolish to think he could ever be done. This work, exhausting and exhilarating by turns had left a mark on him, and a strange sort of peace in its wake. It would always be rough seas, yes, but the calm after the storm was worth any amount of trouble at the start.

He didn’t need photographs to carry him through, now his heart was home.


End file.
